Playstation

Grand Champion’s Rally [PSX – Cancelled]

Grand Champion’s Rally is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Aques. In mid nineties Squaresoft, known for its mastodontic RPGs, created Aques (Advanced QUality of Entertainment and Sports ), a label under which release game based on thoughts and sports. At the japanese PS Expo in late 1996 they announced the first three titles for the Aques brand: a baseball game named Super Live Stadium, a mahjong simulation and a racing game known as Grand Champions Rally, the latter of which would never been released for unknown reasons.

At the time a single screenshot (below) of the rally game was shown in various western magazines like for example Edge 40 and Player One 70. Article about Aques from EGM issue 90.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Magic Carpet [Beta – PC, PSX, Saturn]

Magic Carpet is a shooter / action game developed by Bullfrog Productions and designed by Peter Molyneux, released in may 1994 for PC, Playstation and Saturn. As we can read on Wikipedia, in the game player plays a wizard (on a magic carpet) flying over water, mountains, and other terrain while destroying monsters and rival wizards.

Pcloadletter found an old beta screenshot of Magic Carpet in Edge magazine issue 1 (october 1993) with different hud and 3rd person view. The final game can only be played in first person view so we never seen the main character on the playing screen before (thanks to Aybe for the confirmation!). Also, it seems that the game was planned for the 3DO too..

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Here’s a video from the final version:

 

Assault Korps [PSX PC – Cancelled?]

Assault Korps is a RTS that was in development in 1997 / 1998 by Corrosive for the Playstation and PC, but it seems that the game was cancelled as we cannot find any info about its existence, apart from an early preview that was published in Edge magazine issue #53. Assault Korps was going to play as a tradional real time strategy game, but it was inspired by TV-series like the A-Team and ’50 war films.

Players were able to control a squad of commandos drafted in to counter the activities of a coalition of evil dictators, known as “the Kern”. At least 18 single player missions and a multiplayer mode were planned. As in GTA, it was possible to get into any vehicle found in the levels, as cop cars, tanks and many more.

If you have some more info on this project or its development team, please let us know!

Thanks to Celine for the contribution

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Starship Troopers [PC PSX – Cancelled]

In 1997 / 1998 Spectrum Holobyte was working on an action game based on the Starship Troopers license, that would have been published by Microprose for PC and Playstation, but it was later cancelled. This project was really different from the 2000 released Starship Troopers game, that was instead developed by Blue Tongue. The producer  of the 1998 version was named Simon Finch, who is not in the credits of the 2000 game. In 1996 Microprose / Spectrum Holobyte signed a contract with Sony over the development of several games based on Starship Troopers, but in the end only one was released.

The first in the series of four games is in development under the MicroProse brand for Windows 95 which will be followed by a Sony PlayStation game console version. […]

“As we build our merchandising program for the upcoming theatrical release of Starship Troopers, we felt it would be natural to develop a thrilling multimedia game based on this high action film,” said Scardino. “Through our new relationship with Spectrum Holobyte, we are confident that they will create an innovative game which will appeal to the consumer marketplace.”

As we can read at Economypoint:

Although the [Starship Troopers license] purchase was celebrated at that time of MicroProse as large success, MicroProse drew the enterprise downward. Mismanagement and bad firm politics affected additionally creativity and work of the developers. One had to accept larger losses than before. 1997 were temporarily stabilized the financial situation by high incomes, but they came too late, in order to still save the enterprise. The enterprise was bought up 1998 by Hasbro Interactive, which fired thereafter the flight simulation team already briefly.

It seems that Hasbro decided to cancel Spectrum Holobyte’s Starship Troopers game for economic reasons.

Thanks to derboo for the scans!

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Pac-Man Ghost Zone [PSX – Cancelled]

Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a cancelled platform game that was in development in 1996 by Namco Hometek for the original playstation. This would have been the first 3D Pac Man game to be released for home consoles. Ghost Zone was previewed in various old magazines and it seems that it was even shown in some form at E3, but after a while Namco decided to kill the project for quality reasons. As we can read on the Playstation Museum:

We built a playable demo and even though there was some fun gameplay, the game just never felt right. The environments all felt too much the same and it was lacking a sense of grandeur found in other games like the recently released Mario 64. Japan must of felt the same way too – when we flew to Japan and presented it to Namco president Nakamura-San, he was very displeased. As a result, almost the entire team – save 1 designer (myself), 1 programmer (Gil Colgate) and 1 artist (Neil Strudwick) – were fired and we had to start again on what eventually became Pac-Man World.”

Thanks to Celine for the scans! (GamePro #100, Console+ #78, GameInformer #53)

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